Lennon forgiven

Megan Sweas|Print |Share

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It took Galileo nearly 400 years to get back into good standing with the Catholic Church. John Lennon should be thankful it only took him about 4 decades.

Lennon's famous remark about the Beatles being bigger than Jesus didn't sit too well with some Christians, though it didn't stop their popularity. Forty-two years after Lennon made the comment (1966), the Vatican got the joke, as L'Osservatore Romano called the comment in an article praising the Beatles.

It was only "showing off, bragging by a young English working-class musician who had grown up in the age of Elvis Presley and rock and roll and had enjoyed unexpected success," the papal newspaper says, according to Ekklesia[1].